Heartless

by Kate Rudolph

  There crowd quieted to a murmur as the question went around, wondering what he was going to do next, pointing out that he wasn’t as helpless as they’d first thought. But Kayde didn’t attack the creature. The fire was burrowing deep down into his muscles and he had no doubt that if he let it, it would eat through to the bone and destroy his leg, finishing him off if the monster didn’t kill him first. He swiped his claws against the fabric of his pants, tearing a ragged hole and exposing his skin to the harsh air of the pit. Green blood oozed out around the sizzling venom and Kayde’s first instinct was to wipe it away, but sense prevailed. He grit his teeth and flipped to his side, quickly rubbing his leg in the coarse sand underfoot. It abraded his wound, tearing at the flesh and getting grit where it shouldn’t be. He hoped he’d be able to clean it later, but he had more pressing concerns at the moment.

  The creature had fallen back, perhaps pleased that it had drawn first blood and playing it up for the crowd. But that victory had only lasted seconds and then it was coming back toward Kayde, who sprang up to his feet and tried to ignore the pain in his leg and the weakness it could bring. They fell into the rhythm, the beast and him. It attacked, Kayde defended, it pushed forward, Kayde retreated. Every time he stepped a new wave of agony flashed down his side, but Kayde pushed all of that down into the smallest recess of his mind. Pain he could deal with, there was no recovering from death.

  Already his limbs were starting to feel heavy as the fight dragged on and on. Only battle for sport lasted this long. A fight on the streets was over in seconds, and war was another monster altogether. The strongest weapon of all was no blade or blaster, it was a sharp mind and acute senses, ready to act before he was even fully conscious of the opening in his enemy’s defenses.

  Kayde’s claws flashed out, and as he made contact with the beast, wrapping his legs around one of the tentacles and leveraging himself up to hit at the pulsing core of the monster’s center mass, Kayde yelled in agony. The entire thing was covered in that same slime that had tried to eat through his leg. He could feel it coating his claws and his arm, but that didn’t stop him from digging deep until blood spurted and the animal beneath him went taut and then limp as life fled.

  The crowd went wild as the creature’s body collapsed to the floor, leaving Kayde the victor of this death match. He ignored them, even knowing that doing so could mean his own peril. He wiped his hands as thoroughly as he could on the dusty ground, removing the thin coating of slime that was trying to eat through his clothes and flesh. It didn’t seem to be as potent as what had been shot at his leg, but he hated to think what it would do to him if he left it there for long.

  Lights flashed rapidly, the blink of them disorienting, making Kayde dizzy. Or perhaps that was the injury catching up to him. He heard the door open and looked back the way he’d entered, falling into ready position and expecting another flight. Would they keep throwing monsters at him until he fell? Or was he to be named victor and showered in accolades?

  Neither, it turned out. A half-dozen guards, all covered from head to toe in heavy duty armor, marched out, blasters at the ready. Kayde stayed in position, ready to fight. Was this another test? He could take one or two men with blasters. But six? He didn’t have the skills or the speed. Not while he was injured and stuck in the middle of this bloody spectacle.

  He was so focused on the guards that he never saw the shot coming. Something nicked his neck and before Kayde could reach up to swat at it, he was already falling to the ground unconscious.

  THE HOURS DRAGGED ON and Quinn was about to go out of her mind from the mix of boredom and terror she couldn’t ignore. Though the room was huge, pacing ate up all the distance from one wall to another in a few handfuls of steps. She didn’t know what she expected, but it sure wasn’t this. Shouldn’t a guard have come for her by now? Shouldn’t someone have been there to terrorize her? If there was one thing she could consider herself an expert in, it was being held captive. She practically had a PhD in that subject. But she was quickly learning that they did things differently on Beznifa.

  She was still wearing the pajamas she had woken up in. Despite a thorough search, she’d been unable to uncover any other clothes or shoes. The walls weren’t hiding any cleverly disguised storage containers, and whatever door they had brought her into the room through, it had disappeared. But she wasn’t actively panicking. If there had been a seedy-looking guard making comments about how soft and pretty she looked, then she wouldn’t be able to contain herself. But right now she was only being tortured by the memory of those men. People said that the worst kind of torture was the kind that lived in your own mind, but Quinn would take that any day over the shit that had actually been done to her. The people who made asinine comments about mental torture had clearly never experienced the real thing.

  Quinn practically jumped out of her skin when bells rang faintly behind her. There hadn’t been any noise in the room except for her footsteps, which had been swallowed by the plush carpeting, and her breathing, which practically echoed in the cavernous space. She spun around, hands raised in defense. She knew a few tricks, but she was no fighter. That didn’t mean she was going to go down easy.

  But the person standing haloed by a bright light in a doorway that hadn’t been there a minute ago didn’t seem like she was getting ready to smack Quinn around. This Beznen looked like all the other ones that Quinn had met, pearlescent skin, large features, long limbs, serene face, but she was dressed in a fine wraparound gown in pale lavender. If this were Earth, Quinn would’ve said that this was a rich woman, someone with power, someone who could hurt her or help her depending on a whim. Was the same true on Beznifa? Quinn would have to wait and see.

  “I’m so glad to see you are awake.” The Beznen’s words wrapped around her in the soft hug that they all seem to speak with.

  Quinn’s skin crawled and she shuddered at the thought of any of them touching her. “What’s going on? Where am I?” She tried to keep her voice even, tried to act like she didn’t suspect that anything was wrong. She didn’t know if she would be able to lull the Beznen into a false sense of security, but it was worth a shot.

  “You are confused, and that is regrettable. You have my apologies.” The Beznen’s serene tone never changed. She spoke like Quinn was having an issue at a shop or a restaurant, not like she was being held prisoner on a planet far from home.

  “What’s going on?” she repeated. She almost asked after Kayde, but some instinct held her back.

  “Follow me, and all will be well,” said the Beznen, still not giving her anything approaching an answer to her question.

  For a moment Quinn almost rejected the instruction on principle, but spite wasn’t going to get her and Kayde out of this mess. Hell, maybe Kayde was waiting for her wherever the Beznen woman was taking her. So Quinn followed.

  Her captor or tour guide, the distinction wasn’t clear, led her down the brightly lit hallway. Just like in her room, or holding cell, Quinn couldn’t tell where the light was coming from, and there were no windows so she couldn’t determine the time of day or if the building she was in was near any place she recognized. She was almost worried that they were on a space ship hurtling towards the slave markets or some other equally disgusting place. But Quinn had been on enough ships to know the feel of artificial gravity, and right now she was almost certain that they were standing on solid ground.

  Her captor/guide waved her hand in front of a small panel on the wall. It was almost invisible, and the only thing giving it away was that it was a shade or two darker than the bright paint that practically glowed. Quinn would’ve thought it was just a shadow, but a panel slid to the side and revealed a small room with a table laden with food waiting for the two of them.

  “Do you have a name?” Quinn asked her captor/guide.

  The woman studied her for a moment. “Of course,” she said, as if Quinn were a child who had just asked a very stupid question. “But you may call me Mara.”

  But? Was
Mara not her name? Quinn wasn’t going to dwell on that; at least she had something to call the woman now.

  “Please partake of these refreshments. We have much to do, and the day grows short.” She stood in the doorway and waved Quinn into the room.

  Quinn remembered how quickly she’d fallen asleep after the last meal she’d eaten, and she suspected that she’d been drugged. But her stomach grumbled and she briefly warred with herself. Did she take the risk and eat? Or did she suffer and starve, holding off until she couldn’t say no?

  Delicious smells wafted out of the room, and Quinn’s stomach clenched. That decided her. If the Beznens wanted her to do things today they weren’t about to knock her out. At worst they might give her something to soften her up. That thought was enough to make her second-guess her decision to eat. But by then Quinn was already sitting down and Mara was fixing her a plate filled with things she couldn’t identify.

  Eat or refuse? Quinn’s fingers hovered over something that looked like a pastry, and after a final moment of indecision she picked it up. Mara didn’t look particularly triumphant as Quinn took a bite, and Quinn hoped that meant the food wasn’t tampered with. Her plate was piled high with enough to leave her stuffed until she was fattened up like a beast for the slaughter. That possibility hadn’t occurred to her at first, and Quinn wasn’t sure if it was better or worse than the prospect of slavery.

  Still distantly worried about drugs, and more directly worried about becoming a fattened calf, Quinn left off eating after the first edge of hunger was sated. She could have eaten everything on the plate, but she still had enough self-control to hold back.

  “I’m done,” she told Mara. She didn’t feel dizzy or drunk or anything like that, but Quinn was keeping close monitoring on her physical state. Not that there was much she could do about it at this point.

  Mara smiled, her lips seeming to stretch too far, as if she wasn’t quite sure how a smile was supposed to work. “Excellent. Now come, we must prepare you.”

  “Prepare me for what?” Yeah, that was a little testy, but Quinn was getting tired of trying to pretend she wasn’t freaking out.

  “For your coronation,” Mara replied, leaving Quinn even more confused.

  “Coronation?” Like a queen? No way was that what she meant.

  “You have been long awaited, your highness.”

  Queen sounded a lot better than slave, but the way Mara addressed Quinn sent a shiver down her spine. Somehow she feared that things were about to get a whole lot worse.

  Chapter Nine

  TIME LOST MEANING FOR Kayde. He fought, he ate, he recovered, and after every victory the guards surged onto the floor and he was knocked unconscious by an invisible shooter. The second time it happened, after he’d defeated someone who seemed human until his body shifted into a giant stalking cat with wings growing out of his back, Kayde had turned his back on the guards, fairly certain they wouldn’t shoot him, and looked for whoever was carrying the sedative. And though he’d been turned in the same direction the shot had come from the first time, the back of his neck still pricked as the needle pierced his flesh, and Kayde went down like a heavy sack.

  He didn’t know what kind of drug or technology they were using, but it didn’t keep him out for long. After each fight he woke in his cell rested as if he had enjoyed hours of sleep. A meal waited for him, little more than vitamin enriched protein bars and a jug of water, but it kept the hunger at bay and kept his strength up. But while he felt like he had slept for hours, the pain in his body told a different story. He knew how long wounds took to heal. He knew what his body felt like after a fight. There was only so much healing regen gel could do in a handful of hours. His leg had been bandaged where his first opponent had marked him, but when Kayde risked a peek under the wrapping, the wound had still been red and barely closed, still slathered in healing gel.

  His captors were trying to confuse him, trying to make him think that a lot of time had passed when in reality he couldn’t have been in the cell for more than a day or two. He’d already won six fights, but his body was stiff and he was starting to slow down. He wasn’t ready to give up, but there was only so much activity that was physically possible. He would keep fighting until he collapsed or until he found Quinn and got her out of this mess, but with each fight he grew more concerned.

  “They’re prepping the grand arena for the coronation,” someone said outside the door to his cell. Kayde didn’t know if he was in the same room that he had originally woken up in or if he’d been placed in a different hallway. It was like he was sitting in an empty box, and there weren’t any distinguishing marks on the floor, or the wall, or the ceiling to give him a hint that he’d been here before.

  But that gave him an idea. Even as his ears strained to hear, he let his claws flash out and started to score a line on the ground beside him. He did his best to keep it close to the wall, to make it something that wouldn’t be noticed in a cursory glance. Who counted the cracks on the floor in a prisoner’s holding cell?

  Kayde did, and there were none, which was why he was making his own.

  “I never thought we would see another queen,” a different voice said. They both had the somnolent tone of the Beznens that Quinn had pointed out to him. He didn’t understand what she meant when she said it was like being hugged, but the words did seem to almost rub against his flesh like they were trying to burrow under his skin and take hold of him. It wasn’t natural and a part of him wondered if they did something to themselves to enhance their voices.

  “The timing is fortuitous,” said the first Beznen. “The solstice approaches.”

  “Yes, but when will we find a proper champion? To do this right, we would need months to prepare. Instead we are forced to rely upon these... creatures. They do not deserve her.” The second Beznen was probably scowling.

  Kayde could almost imagine that, and distantly he wondered if that awareness was a sign of degradation. Since flying away with Quinn, Kayde hadn’t noticed any more problems with his mental state but he knew that he could not rely on his own judgment. It didn’t matter. He was already locked in a cell and being forced to fight for his survival. A full devolution might be a blessing in disguise. If he lost the last bits of himself, the last vestiges of whatever it was that made him a person, he would destroy everything in his path until he was put down. Blood would flow until it drowned everyone around him, and Kayde would have his vengeance against those who had presumed to use him for cheap entertainment.

  But that would leave Quinn unprotected, or even worse, it would leave her harmed by his hands. Kayde’s focus sharpened, and he was determined to hold onto his sanity. He could not betray Quinn like that—he was responsible for her since he was the one who had brought her here—and he would do everything in his power to see her away safely. And then he would make sure that his mental state remained stable, even if he had to meditate every hour and keep a tight guard on whatever remnants of emotion tried to flare to life.

  “We must take our opportunities as they come,” said the first Beznen. “I know that I would wager on our reigning king of the ring. He has survived for more than a month. I came out of the valley for his first fight, and have only missed a handful since. If any of this batch deserves to be our champion, it is him.”

  “What about the blue brute?” asked the second. Kayde had the uncomfortable suspicion that they were speaking about him, and it was only confirmed as they continued to speak. “Six fights in two days, and he should have been destroyed in the first. Krallgin was our former reigning contender. That was his first fight back after he’d been granted a stay by the governor.”

  “Very possible,” agreed the first. They began to move and their voices trailed off, leaving Kayde in his cell to wonder what in all the hells was going on. A new queen? The champion? Why couldn’t they talk about something useful? Like where Quinn was being kept, or if she was even a prisoner. They hadn’t mentioned a human contender, but would they if she had been defeated in
her first fight?

  Kayde’s stomach flipped at the thought and he dug his claw hard enough into the ground that it began to pull away from his hand, straining enough to hurt. He quickly pulled back, and sheathed his claws to give them a little time to rest. He glanced down at his handiwork. It was nothing fancy, but he only needed to mark the room so that he knew if he was brought back here. For that, it would do.

  Could Quinn be dead already? Kayde’s entire being rebelled at the thought. He could not let himself believe that she had been thrown into the pit for the entertainment of the Beznens. Why would they do that? She was worth so much more than that. If anyone deserved to be crowned queen, it was her. He didn’t let himself dwell on the thought of Quinn being dead, or on why the mere idea of that affected him so much. He didn’t know where she was, but the Beznens had done him a favor by speaking outside of a cell. The first monster he’d fought had earned a reprieve somehow, and the reigning master of the ring seem to have the respect of the Beznens. They were looking for a champion, and it was possible they wouldn’t leave a champion to rot in an anonymous cell.

  Kayde had his goal. It was the only way out, and if he could meet this queen and bend her ear in his favor, he and Quinn just might be able to make it home.

  THIS QUEEN THING WASN’T making any sense, though Quinn wasn’t sure what she had expected. Probably etiquette lessons, or law, or tiara fittings, something like that. Sure, there were fancy clothes, all in the same soft, pale fabrics that didn’t look like they could sustain the slightest contact with any weather. But the light colors looked great against her dark skin, she had to admit. They wouldn’t give her any regular shoes either, and she had asked. Her attendants, or captors, paid lip service to her requests, but any time she asked for sturdier footwear, or to go outside, or what had happened to Kayde, they found a way not to answer her.